Chapter 3 - The Mask Fractures
Vanessa stepped into the study, the sharp clatter of her heels striking the polished hardwood floor like gunfire.
Her chest heaved beneath the red silk of her bodice, and the immaculate diamond necklace around her throat trembled with every breath.
Behind her, two towering Bellini enforcers flanked the entrance, their dark eyes scanning the room with dangerous intent.
Oliver instantly gasped, scrambling backward on the leather sofa until his small back was pressed firmly against the mahogany wall.
He clutched the small wooden soldier to his chest, his eyes wide with sheer terror.
“Mommy...” he whivered, before catching himself in a panic.
“I mean... Aunt Vanessa! I was quiet! I did not make a mess!”
The boy’s terrified stammer hung in the air like a death sentence.
Luca slowly turned around, his massive frame shielding both Oliver and me from the doorway.
His hands remained relaxed at his sides, but his posture radiated an ancient, lethal predator preparing to strike.
“You brought armed men into my private quarters, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice horrifyingly calm.
Vanessa pointed a trembling, manicured finger at Oliver.
“That boy is Bellini business, Luca!”
“He has nothing to do with you or this house!”
“I took pity on my late cousin’s bastard child years ago and paid for his upkeep out of my own allowance!”
“His presence here is an embarrassment to my family, and I ordered him removed before he humiliated us!”
Luca took a single, slow step toward her.
The floorboards did not even creak beneath his weight.
“Your cousin’s bastard?” Luca asked, tilting his head slightly.
“Yes!” Vanessa screamed, her voice cracking as her composure disintegrated entirely.
“His mother died of an overdose in Detroit, and his father was a nobody!”
“I hid him because I knew how judgmental your family is about bloodlines!”
“I did it to protect our future, Luca!”
Luca reached into his inner breast pocket with deliberate slowness.
Vanessa’s enforcers tensed, their hands twitching toward their hidden weapons under their jackets.
Before they could draw an inch of steel, the shadows along the study walls shifted.
Four Moretti soldiers stepped forward from the corners, their semi-automatic pistols equipped with silencers aimed directly at the heads of the Bellini guards.
Daniel stepped behind the two enforcers, pressing the cold barrel of a weapon against the base of the lead guard’s skull.
“Clear your leather,” Daniel commanded in a monotone whisper.
“Drop the pieces on the rug, or your families collect your remains in trash bags.”
The two Bellini men froze, swallowing hard, before slowly using two fingers to draw their pistols and letting them clatter onto the Persian rug.
Daniel kicked the weapons behind him, while two Moretti guards dragged the enforcers out into the hall and slammed the doors shut.
Now, Vanessa stood alone.
Luca pulled his hand from his jacket, revealing the sterling silver christening medal Oliver had given him.
The twin-headed falcon caught the warm light of the desk lamp.
He held it out by its faded ribbon, letting it dangle between them.
Vanessa’s eyes locked onto the tarnished metal, and every ounce of color drained from her face until she looked like a corpse in a crimson shroud.
“If his father was a nobody,” Luca murmured, his voice sending chills down my spine, “why does he carry the medal I personally bought for Matteo on the day he was baptized?”
Vanessa’s mouth opened, but no words emerged.
Her throat worked convulsively, her manicured hands fluttering uselessly against her hips.
“I... I found that in Matteo’s penthouse after he was killed,” she lied desperately, her voice rising in a frantic pitch.
“Matteo gave it to me as a keepsake before he died! The boy must have stolen it from my jewelry box when I visited him!”
“He is a thief, Luca! You cannot trust a word that comes out of that little street rat’s mouth!”
From the sofa behind us, Oliver began to sob uncontrollably, burying his face in his hands.
“I am not a thief,” the boy wailed into his knees.
“You gave it to me, Mommy! You put it around my neck on my birthday!”
Vanessa spun toward the child, her face twisting into an expression of pure, unadulterated venom.
“Shut up, you ungrateful little monster!” she screamed, taking two aggressive strides toward the sofa with her hand raised to strike.
Before she could cover half the distance, Luca’s hand clamped around her throat like an iron vise.
The impact halted her mid-stride.
Vanessa gasped, her eyes bulging as Luca lifted her slightly onto her tiptoes.
“You will never raise your hand to a child in this house,” Luca said, his voice devoid of any human warmth.
“And you will certainly never raise your hand to Matteo’s flesh and blood.”
“Luca... please...” Vanessa choked out, her fingers clawing at the massive wrist holding her pinned.
“You are... hurting me...”
“Did you think about pain when you grabbed Emma’s arm at the gate?” Luca asked, his dark eyes boring into hers.
“Did you think about pain when you threw this boy into boarding houses to rot so you could climb into my bed?”
Luca released his grip with deliberate contempt, shoving her backward.
Vanessa stumbled, landing hard against the mahogany armchair near the desk, coughing and clutching her red throat.
At that moment, the side door of the study opened, and Dr. Antonio Rossi entered.
The sixty-year-old physician had served the Moretti family for three decades, treating gunshot wounds, delivering babies, and keeping the family’s darkest secrets buried.
He carried a black leather medical bag, his silver hair neatly combed despite the late hour.
“You called, Luca?” Dr. Rossi asked, taking in the scene with the practiced calm of a veteran surgeon.
“Treat Emma first,” Luca commanded, pointing toward me.
“Clean the laceration on her forearm and document the contusions on her wrist.”
“Then, I want a complete physical examination of the boy.”
“And take buccal swabs from Oliver and myself for an immediate genetic sequencing test.”
Vanessa shot up from the chair, her voice hoarse from the chokehold.
“You cannot do this! My father will rip this family to pieces!”
“The Bellinis have sixty soldiers outside those gates!”
Luca did not even look at her.
“Your father is currently trapped in my dining room, surrounded by thirty of my men with machine guns.”
“If he makes a single move without my permission, he will not leave this estate breathing.”
Dr. Rossi guided me gently to a chair near the desk.
With practiced hands, he used medical shears to cut away the blood-soaked sleeve of my gray uniform.
He applied an antiseptic solution to the torn flesh, the stinging sensation making me bite my lower lip to avoid crying out.
“Four distinct fingertip bruises on the anterior wrist,” Dr. Rossi recited quietly, writing notes in a small ledger.
“Severe soft-tissue contusion consistent with heavy force applied by an adult hand.”
“A three-inch laceration across the ulna, caused by blunt metal trauma.”
He looked up at Luca.
“This was not an accident, Luca. Someone grabbed her wrist and forcibly pulled her against the ironwork.”
Luca’s jaw clenched so hard the muscles in his neck stood out like cords.
“Document everything, Antonio.”
Dr. Rossi applied sterile butterfly bandages to close the wound, wrapping my arm in clean white gauze until the pain subsided into a manageable throb.
Then, the elderly doctor turned toward the sofa, his eyes softening as he approached the weeping child.
“Hello, young man,” Dr. Rossi said warmly, kneeling beside the couch.
“I am Antonio. May I take a look at your sweater?”
Oliver looked timidly at Luca, seeking permission.
Luca nodded once, offering the boy an encouraging, protective smile that looked entirely foreign on his scarred face.
Oliver slowly unbuttoned his navy sweater, pulling it over his head.
Beneath the sweater, the boy wore only a thin, frayed undershirt.
When Dr. Rossi lifted the hem of the undershirt to listen to the child’s breathing, a collective gasp filled the study.
Along Oliver’s pale ribcage and across the tops of his small shoulder blades were several faint, yellowish-purple discolorations.
Old bruises, healing poorly in uneven patterns.
Dr. Rossi’s warm expression vanished instantly, replaced by the grim sorrow of an experienced doctor who had seen the worst of humanity.
“Malnutrition in the early stages,” Dr. Rossi stated, his voice trembling with rare anger.
“Signs of physical neglect.”
“These contusions along the scapula are consistent with blunt force impacts that occurred at least three weeks ago.”
Luca walked over to the sofa, towering over the child.
He knelt down, his large hand resting gently on Oliver’s knee.
“Oliver,” Luca asked, fighting to keep his voice steady.
“Who did this to you?”
Oliver looked terrified, his eyes darting toward Vanessa, who sat frozen in the armchair, her face a mask of sweating terror.
“Mr. Gable,” Oliver whispered, his chin trembling.
“The man at the big house in Rockford.”
“He said if I cried when Mommy did not visit, he would put me in the dark cellar with the broomsticks.”
“Mommy told him to make sure I did not run away.”
A dead, suffocating silence descended upon the room.
Vanessa pressed herself back into the leather cushions, shaking her head frantically.
“I did not know!” she screamed, her voice cracking into high-pitched hysteria.
“I paid them ten thousand dollars a month to take care of him!”
“I did not know what they were doing to him!”
Luca rose from the floor with the slow, terrifying momentum of an avalanche.
He walked across the room until he stood towering over the trembling woman in the crimson dress.
“You took Matteo’s son,” Luca whispered, each syllable dripping with venom.
“You hid him in an abusive hellhole for seven years while you spent my brother’s blood money on designer gowns and diamond rings.”
“You brought him to Chicago tonight not to introduce him, but to put him on a private plane to a country where he could never speak a word of English again.”
“Because you knew that if I married you, any legitimate claim to the Moretti empire would pass to our future children.”
“While Matteo’s living son would have legally inherited every single brick of this dynasty.”
Vanessa’s tears finally broke through, streaking her mascara down her cheeks in ugly black lines.
“Luca, please! I did it for us!”
“Matteo was dead! He died before the boy was even born!”
“What good would it have done to bring a bastard into the family?”
“We could have had our own children! We could have ruled Chicago together!”
Luca looked down at her with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust that made her shrink into the leather.
“Matteo loved you,” Luca said softly.
“He died defending a supply shipment that your father leaked to the Maroni syndicate.”
Vanessa’s breath hitched in her throat, her eyes widening in absolute horror as the realization hit her.
Luca had known all along about the Bellini family’s betrayal.
He had simply been waiting for the final piece of the puzzle to drop into place.
Luca turned toward the entrance doors and raised his voice.
“Daniel.”
The heavy oak doors swung open immediately.
“Boss?”
“Escort Miss Bellini to the wine cellar under armed guard.”
“Confiscate her phone, her jewelry, and her shoes.”
“If she attempts to speak, gag her.”
“Luca, no! You cannot do this to me! I am a Bellini!” Vanessa shrieked as two stone-faced guards grabbed her by her upper arms and dragged her out of the chair.
Her crimson dress dragged across the Persian rug, her desperate screams echoing down the marble hallway until the heavy iron door of the cellar slammed shut in the distance.
The study was suddenly quiet again, save for the crackle of the rain against the windowpanes.
Dr. Rossi completed the cheek swabs, sealing Oliver’s sample into a sterile plastic vial before taking Luca’s sample.
“I will run the PCR sequencing in my mobile lab vehicle, Luca,” Dr. Rossi said, packing his instruments into his leather bag.
“I will have the definitive match within twenty minutes.”
“Thank you, Antonio,” Luca said.
When the doctor left the room, Luca turned toward the sofa.
Oliver was sitting quietly, holding the battered cardboard suitcase in his lap like an anchor.
Luca walked over, pulling the heavy wool blanket off the side table and wrapping it securely around the little boy’s shivering shoulders.
“Emma,” Luca said, turning his dark eyes toward me.
“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”
“Sit down.”
I hesitated, my maid’s training screaming that I was not permitted to sit in the presence of the syndicate Don.
“Please, Emma,” he added, his voice stripped of all command, leaving only the exhaustion of a grieving brother.
“Sit with us.”
I walked over and sat on the edge of the leather sofa beside Oliver.
The moment I sat down, the little boy leaned his head against my side, his small, warm hand reaching out to hold my uninjured right fingers.
Luca looked at the way Oliver clung to me, then down at the white gauze wrapped around my left wrist.
“You protected him,” Luca said softly.
“You knew Vanessa could ruin you, and you still refused to throw that drawing into the fire.”
“He is just a baby, Mr. Moretti,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision as I smoothed Oliver’s wild curls.
“Nobody deserves to be treated like trash.”
“Especially not by the people who are supposed to protect them.”
Luca looked down at the child’s drawing resting on his desk, his scarred fingers gently tracing the childish blue letters across the bottom:
Our new family, Luca.
May you like
“You are right, Emma,” Luca murmured, his voice hardening with an icy resolve that made the air in the room turn cold.
“And tonight, Chicago is going to learn what happens to those who hurt my family.”
